


Said the Spider

by charonhenson



Series: Singularity [2]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Abstract, Horror, this is very charlie centric so be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 08:24:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13003743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charonhenson/pseuds/charonhenson
Summary: There's a fly on Charlie's arm, and it won't go away.





	Said the Spider

**Author's Note:**

> This carries on from my original story, Golden. If you want to read it that's fine as it provides a little context about halfway through, but it's a year old and it sucks so it's entirely up to you. Hope you enjoy!! x

Maybe it's the cat food, or the glue. All he can hear is this weird, low buzz, like he swallowed a wasp's nest or something. There's probably flies in the apartment, in the walls or the bathroom. Maybe someone died in the hallway again. 

There's still a weird fuzzy hum when he heads up to Paddy's. Like when you go to a concert and end up standing right next to the speaker and then when the music stops your whole head feels empty and whooshing like a hot air balloon. It's been a little while since he had anything stronger than his two morning beers, so there's no way he's sick or anything. 

-

There's a fly on his arm. It's been there for like 5 hours now and he keeps trying to squash it but he can't catch it, like when all the guys were drinking in the office and Dennis pointed his laser pointer at the wall and told Charlie it was dirt so he'd keep trying to wipe it away. Dennis would laugh every time he tried. He tried so many times Dennis eventually got bored and left. But the fly is still there. He can feel it under his hand but when he tries to look at the little fly body it's just air, and he feels it crawling somewhere else again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. 

-

Mac calls, he wants help with a door. The humming gets louder when Charlie jiggles the handle.  
It takes too long to try and pick the lock or whatever Mac's pretending to be good at, so he eventually just runs against the door until it breaks. There's a second where he can't tell if his head is buzzing from the impact or if the air is crackling louder against his ears- he squints as Mac's lips move over words he doesn't hear.

Dennis isn't in his room and Charlie makes his excuses to leave, mumbling something about Frank and digging his grubby fingertips into the soft inside of his earholes. On the way out it feels like he's being watched, like the back of his neck is tied to someone's pulling hand. 

-

Charlie has to stop his hasty scoffing of cat food when he bites down on something hard and dry. He lets his mouthful slide onto his palm to poke through it softly. There's a fly- half a fly. The smell of fish and the yowling and that buzz, that bone shaking buzz suddenly strikes between the eyes and he grimaces until the wave of discomfort deep in his gut settles. The cat food gets tossed out the window and Charlie desperately tries to sleep through the night. 

-

Mac's gone. Mac's gone. Dennis took him. Mac just walked towards him like he was hypnotised and now Mac's gone. That thing had Dennis- He had his face and He smiled just like Dennis and He was taller, stronger, lighter than Dennis and He took Mac and Mac's gone. Charlie watched the strings wrap around them, round and round like cotton candy at a circus. They're still there when Charlie breaks and sleeps, splayed before them on the hardwood floor. They've disappeared when he wakes up, disoriented and stiff. Hot tears slide down his cheeks, soaking into the piss stain on his jeans. 

-

Charlie is lying over a booth seat at the back of the bar. The buzzing is chattering his teeth. The fly won't leave him alone. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. 

-

Charlie leaves a human-sized patch of sweat on the bed. Frank curses at him every morning, hamming on about laundry like they ever do any. The fly is flies now, three or eight scuttling into his eyes and his nose like it's theirs, like they live there. 

-

Every night he thinks he's awake, and he turns and he looks at his hands and it's all muscles and bone peeking through and he can't blink because his eyelids are gone and he looks and his skin is crawling away from him, slipping like butter under the door. 

-

Charlie is wiping marks off the cubicles in the bathroom. He had to chase Cricket out of this stall a few days ago, he can make out numbers and something about drugs and Gud Tims, and the pen he used is sticking into the wall no matter how hard Charlie scrubs at it. 

At first he thinks he's sweating from the work, but his feet feel wetter, like he's standing in a storm drain. He glances down to check the floor drain isn't clogged. Thick red liquid is bubbling up inside his shoes to soak the hem of his pants, dribbling onto the tiles. Charlie sits heavily onto the toilet lid and rips his sneakers off; globs of blood slap onto the floor as they seep out of his socks. He yanks those off too. His feet are slick, itchy with drying scabs. Charlie stands to lift the lid of the toilet and dunks his foot into the water, hysterically splashing pink water onto the walls as he tries to rinse it away.  
Bare and damp, he cannot even see a bruise on either foot. 

-

He's nursing a beer when he instinctively slaps an itch against his neck. His hand comes away with a maggot lodged deep in his cuticle. It's wriggling, like it's still trying to burrow into the plush tissue. A violent wave of nausea hits so hard and fast that Charlie vomits where he's sitting. He can't bring himself to move a muscle even when Dee is screaming at him to clean himself up. He's panting, burning up like he ran a marathon in a winter coat. The puke on his lap is saturated with dancing white lines. 

-

The clock has a 3 on it, but it's dark outside so it must be night still. One of his teeth is loose, which is the most normal thing that he's felt in months. When he yanks it out, there's a golden thread rooted in its base, leading back into his gum. Pulling at it tugs at something deep in the pit of his chest. It won't snap the way hair does. He eventually tries to cut it away, and it feels like he's trying to break his own arm- the thread breaks with a wet snapping sound. Charlie doesn't go back to sleep, tonguing the burning in his mouth until the sky outside is pale and ripe. The air coming through the window is heavy, sour with something rotting below.

-

Charlie can't eat. It sticks in his throat, gumming against the back of his mouth until he panics and coughs it out in one big lump- more food comes out than he stuffed in. It glistens, iridescent, and he thinks about a starling he found in the gutter once.

-

In his dreams, Charlie can read. Mac grabs him, skin shimmering and warped through the surface of a golden lake. Upon closer inspection, the surface is made of thin wires, heavy black words scattered through their twines. PAIN. FEAR. LOVE. GOD. CHARLIE. CHARLIE. HERE. CHARLIE. HURT. CHARLIE. LIFE. RUN. CHARLIE. Mac smiles, mouth filled with coins, and hugs Charlie so tight he can't breathe. Fingers grip and push him away into the wires until they slice into his back. Charlie wakes up, sobbing like a child. 

-

Outside the door to the bar lies a thin golden string. Charlie picks it up, heart hammering. Somehow, he senses, this will bring everything to an end. 

Pulling on the string, he finds his hand refuses to drop it. As he walks along its length, it is drawn into his hand as if he were winding up a tape measure. The string pulls him for long, dragging minutes, his feet stumbling- a blind man walking to Mecca. Charlie turns into a thin gap between two buildings. 

There is a mass of insects hovering in the alley. It shifts, chunks sliding over its surface until it crudely resembles Charlie's shadow. The string snaps into his palm. This is the epicentre; he can sense it in the weight of the air around them. Golden wires flicker inside the thrum, hinting at some kind of structure under the swarming layers. 

Charlie lifts a hand. It mimics him, movement lazy and undefined. 

Charlie's blistered feet drag him further into the alleyway, and he no longer has the energy to resist. 

The mass echoes, imitated legs rolling forward as Charlie closes the gap. 

Only when he can feel them pinching into his arms does Charlie summon the energy to recoil, bluebottles clinging to his fingers as he strains to get away. He gasps, and his mouth floods with handfuls of tiny bodies digging under his tongue. They fill his nose, his ears, his clothes, the buzzing is everywhere now, it hums through his body like he isn't even there. 

The gold folds over his eyes, wiping away the tears until all he sees is one vast, shining plain.

He can hear Mac pleading with someone to let go, to take something else, but Charlie hasn't slept properly in weeks. He's tired. He's so very, very tired.

The hum takes him over, and away. 

-

A little girl is dancing along the pavement, her father warning her not to go too far in such a rough part of town. Little puffs of hair are held with scrunchies either side of her head.

A movement catches her eye, and she turns to see a swarm of flies held, briefly, in the shape of a man, before suddenly collapsing and flying away in a loose cloud. "Daddy!" 

Her dad catches up, and she points into the alley. "There was a man, and he flew away into the sky like birds! And-"  
"Don't be silly, sweetheart. You wanna go get some lunch?"  
"-Um. Okay! Can we get ice cream?"

She is picked up and swung onto her father's shoulders. A small spider clings to her sock. Her dad pinches it between his fingers and flicks it away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading all the way to the end guys! I finally got off my ass and wrote a sequel, so I really hope you liked it. x


End file.
